How to create and sort two-dimensional array... 1

[programmerhead]

I can't seem to find any helpful documentation on how to create two dimensional arrays in perl and sort them. For instance, I have a script that provides a person's name and a description of them in strings in a for loop. I want to be able to sort an array by the first names, while still retaining their relationship to the descriptions.

for($i=0; $i<10; $i++){
my $temp_name = param('$i_name');
my $temp_descrip = param('$i_descrip');
}

Can anyone help me please?

 

[mikevh]

You need to u/s references to do a 2D array. A 2D array is an array of array references. There is much documentation on the subject. Check out

perldoc perldsc
perldoc perllol
perldoc perlref
perldoc perlreftut

If you prefer your documentation on the web:

http://www.perldoc.com/

and search for perldsc, perllol, etc.

To make a 2D array with your names and desriptions as given above and sort it by the name field, you'd do something like this:

[b]my @arr;[/b]
for($i=0; $i<10; $i++){
  my $temp_name = param('$i_name');
  my $temp_descrip = param('$i_descrip');
  [b]push(@arr, [$temp_name, $temp_descrip]);[/b]
}
[b]for (sort {$a->[0] cmp $b->[0]} @arr) {
  print "[", join(", ", @$_), "]\n";
}[/b]

 

[waiterm]

Have a look at using hashes:

http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~abatko/computers/programming/perl/howto/hash/

Rob Waite

http://www.hostpipe.co.uk?src=TT